THE PROSPECT OF VIRTUAL LABORATORY IN SOLVING PROBLEMS OF
LEARNING AND TEACHING ARCHITECTURAL SCIENCE IN INDONESIA

Oleh :
Ir. Prasasto Satwiko, MBSc, Ph.D10 Maret 2001

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English

ABSTRACT

The lack of appropriate architectural
science laboratories to support good learning-teaching methods
has longbeen a problem in
Indonesia and has been suspected result in the poor building
environmental design quality.Anticipating
the global free trade era, the methods should be improved if
the students are to compete with theircounterparts
from countries with well-established education system. The
current poor condition of almost all ofIndonesian
life sectors has forced people to use the limited resources
more efficiently and effectively.Miraculously,
those crises, instead of affecting the availability of
computer technology significantly; theyenlighten
the positive potentials of the computer technology. Computer
based virtual laboratories have become arealistic
option; they offer a comprehensive solution for technical and
non-technical problems of learning andteaching
architectural sciences.

INTRODUCTION

A virtual laboratory is a computer
laboratory with anability to
digitally imitate conventional equipment orreproduce
real world phenomena. The term virtual isnot
only used to describe the virtual nature of thelaboratory
but also cunningly utilised the new trend,the
virtual technology. An observation conducted inYogyakarta
showed students’ high enthusiasm tovirtual
reality technologies.

The positive prospect of virtual
laboratory in solvingproblems in
learning and teaching architecturalsciences
has naturally emerged from Indonesia’scurrent
conditions. Those very pessimistic conditions(very
poor economy, education, etc.) contain positivepotentials,
which should be responded creatively. Thispaper
begins with a review on the presentdiscouraging
economic situation of Indonesia, whichaffects
the education sector. It is followed by thediscussions
on the architecture education, thearchitectural
science learning-teaching method, andthe
promising development of computer technology.The
bright sides of the crises are explored andconcluded
with the relevance of developingarchitectural
science virtual laboratories. Partialresults
of the research on the architectural students’knowledge
of computer hardware and software,conducted
in Yogyakarta Special Region, arepresented.

ECONOMIC AND EDUCATION

Indonesia, with its more than 212
million people, isstill
considered as one of the poorest countries in theworld.
Average Regional Minimum Personal Incomeis
around US$20.00 per month, but a daily wage ofless
than US$0.50 is not uncommon. Meanwhile,there
are few people who can earn more thanUS$100,000.00
per month.The wide gap between
the wealthy and the poor isreflected
on extreme differences of lifestyles, from amodern
(even futuristic) lifestyle in metropolitan,such
as in Jakarta to the Stone Age lifestyle in remoteareas
such as in West Papua. The gap also obviouslypresents
in the education society, teaching andlearning
facilities offered by poor and richuniversities;
also between the poor and the wealthystudents.

For the year 2000, the government can
only allocate6.8 % of its
national budget for the education sector,which
is considered very low by the education societyfor
around 7.2 million students are predicted to dropout
from their schools. Table 1 shows a relatively lowstate
education expenditure per capita of threeIndonesia’s
biggest cities (Jakarta, Surabaya,Bandung)
compared to some cities in Asia, in 1999,according
to Asiaweek. With such a low budget, it iseasy
to understand the low quality education results.Scholars
openly state that the quality of Indonesianeducation
system is steadily declining.